Chapter 16: Dried Sweet Potatoes
The sweet potatoes are sliced and dried. When they are sufficiently dry to easily break apart and crumble, they are ground into powder using a stone mill, which turns them into sweet potato flour.
In rural households where sweet potatoes are grown, this is a common way of consuming them.
Unless the sweet potatoes are too small to bother grinding into flour, they are steamed directly for consumption. However, even though sweet potatoes are sweet, eating them this way can make one’s mouth feel sour and leave the stomach feeling empty.
“I’m planning to dry some sweet potatoes, not into flour but into snacks,” explained Su Mulan. “I thought I could sun-dry some sweet potatoes and sell them in town to earn some money.”
“That kind of dried sweet potatoes, while sweet and tasty, are too hard. Chewing them makes your cheeks ache, probably not easy to sell…”
When Bai Shitang was still around, Bai Shuiliu often had various snacks to enjoy, including dried sweet potatoes. However, those dried sweet potatoes were so tough that they hurt her cheeks to chew. After experiencing this, Bai Shitang never bought them again.
Anyone who has bought such dried sweet potatoes once knows—they are a common sight at the town market gatherings. Knowing this, they definitely won’t buy them again.
As Bai Shuiliu thought this, she suddenly felt she had spoken too much. She even regretted how she could consider Su Mulan normal just because she had eaten well for a couple of days.
Su Mulan smiled faintly, “I know the kind of dried sweet potatoes you’re talking about. But the ones I make are different from theirs. Mine are soft, sticky, and sweet, definitely won’t make your cheeks ache.”
Seeing Bai Shuiliu still silent, Su Mulan picked up the cleaned bowl of sweet potatoes and headed towards the kitchen. “If you don’t believe me, wait until I make them. You can taste them then.”
She’s not even angry?
Well, that’s good…
Bai Shuiliu sighed in relief and followed Su Mulan into the kitchen, curious to see how she would make these so-called soft, sticky, and sweet dried sweet potatoes.
Su Mulan wiped the water off the sweet potatoes, carefully placing each one into the steaming basket. She then added two ladles of water into a large iron pot, placed the steaming basket on top, and started a fire underneath.
Bai Shuiliu promptly fetched firewood for the fire.
“The weather is hot. Go outside and wash the sweet potatoes. After washing them, let them air-dry in a cool place. We’ll steam them once this pot is ready,” Su Mulan instructed.
Bai Shuiliu nodded and went to the yard to wash the sweet potatoes as directed by Su Mulan. She washed them repeatedly, cleaning off the dirt and removing any bad spots.
Since the sweet potatoes were small, the batch in the pot cooked quickly.
She took this batch of sweet potatoes outside to cool in a shady place, then filled the steaming basket again and continued steaming.
They repeated this process four times in total until all the sweet potatoes were steamed.
When the last batch of sweet potatoes was brought out, the first batch that had been left to cool was already touchable with bare hands.
Su Mulan called Bai Shuiliu to peel the sweet potatoes, while she herself placed the peeled sweet potatoes on a cutting board and sliced them into thick pieces. Then, she arranged these thick slices back on the flat bamboo basket and set them out in the sunny spot to dry.
As the two were busy with their tasks, by the time Bai Lixia returned with a bamboo basket full of sweet potato vines and leaves, many pieces of dried sweet potatoes had already been spread out in the yard.
“Lixia, you’re back. Come help peel the sweet potatoes,” Bai Shuiliu called out.
“Coming.” Bai Lixia set the sweet potato leaves aside and grabbed a makeshift wooden stool to sit beside Bai Shuiliu, starting to peel the sweet potatoes.